


Her Heart Hangs From A Cord

by ShinobiCyrus



Category: Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001), Tarzan (1999)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Atlantis: The Lost Empire Fusion, Crossover, Foreign Language, I REGRET NOTHING, Languages and Linguistics, One Shot, and yes it was entirely too much work for a short little, yes I actually looked up how the invented Atlantean Language works
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 01:47:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28752390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShinobiCyrus/pseuds/ShinobiCyrus
Summary: Jane porter is not an adventuress. Nor is she on the hunt for treasure or a seeker of something arbitrary as glory. She joined Mr. Whitmore's expedition to vindicate father's legacy and give his (and her) critics what-for.She could not account for this. Standing in the greatest find in the history of mankind, a long-lost civilization alive and rediscovered against all oddsAnd she's making an utter fool of herself in front of the warrior-princess.Father would be positively chuffed.
Relationships: Kida Nedakh/Jane Porter (Disney)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Her Heart Hangs From A Cord

**Author's Note:**

> In response to a challenge prompt, an Anon sent to my tumblr said: ❝I wish you would write a fic where... Jane Porter was replaced with Milo James Thatch in the Tarzan plotline or vice versa in the Atlantis: The Lost Empire plotline.❞
> 
> This of course gave me an excuse to write more about fake archaeology nerds my favorite lost civilization, so of course I pounced right on that second option.

After the third time waking up on the meager bedroll Ms. Sinclair had thrown at her to replace the one lost in the fire, Jane gave up trying to sleep. Days wandering in sunless tunnels miles below the earth had completely bollocksed her internal clock, and the weight of the day’s discoveries refused to settle soundly.

Somehow, the rest of the crew slept as though it all were a mere camping trip. Mister Santorini was content with a bag a volatile explosives as a pillow, Audrey was sleeping beneath a truck halfway through an overhaul, and Mole was…doing whatever Mole did in his holes. 

She walked barefoot around her snoring crew, wearing the same sweaty shirt and begrimed skirt she’d been wearing since the _Ulysses_ had sunk. There’d been so little time to grab what she could- besides the Journal, all Jane had of her luggage and equipment was the leather bag she’d carried around with her since university. Hardly what a sensible and proper adventurer would prioritize in dire circumstances.

What passed for nighttime in an underground cavern bigger than London slowly lightened into blue twilight. Jane’s feet padded across mossy stones that at one time might have been a street full of people busying about their day, thousands of years before the Roman empire had set foot in Britain with fancies of greatness.

Hiking up her skirt, Jane sat down at the water’s edge and dipped her feet to cool. The humidity was a ceaseless pressure since they’d arrived, unaffected by a lack of sun or conventional notions of weather. It took Jane back to her mother’s greenhouse in Kensington. The squish of soil between her fingers, dirt in her nails, quizzes for each plant’s name in Latin. _Lonicera periclymenum. Digitalis purpurea._ No, Janey dear, it’s pronounced _Convallaria muh-_ jay _-liss._

Undoing the snaps of her bag, Jane dug out her few effects that had miraculously survived the shipwreck intact. An engraved fountain pen her father gave her for her birthday, her personal journal, a few pages of scribbled notes about the Atlantean tongue, some pencils and a…

Oh. It was the telegram from the Museum board that her last expedition proposal had been denied. God, had that only been a month ago?

Tucking that carefully back into her bag, Jane tried and failed to catalogue her thoughts of the last few days. After some minutes of fruitless, scratched out attempts and resisting that old childish urge to chew at her pen, Jane looked up from the page and saw exactly what her words would never be able to impart with any due justice.

Pencils were more suitable for this sort of work. Already there were industrious fisherman out on the water in elaborately-carved junks, casting their nets out while distant cooking fires were lit in anticipation. Jane sketched them as quickly as she could, saving the details for the architectural backdrop behind them. A moss weathered dome surrounded by tents and rickety, stilted towers. A toppled pillar next to a half-submerged stone face like the fossilized head of some long dead giant. 

It reminded her of Athens, or the holiday she’d taken with father to Rome. A people living in the literal shadows of their own history, monuments of proud glories turned bittersweet mausoleums to grander times long since past. 

A single drop of water hit the page, smearing the lines of graphite. Jane sniffed and rubbed at her eye.

“Are you…alright?”

Jane squeaked and shot to her feet, nearly tangling in her own skirts and falling over right in front of-

Princess Kidagakash, looking every much like a warrior even absent of her stone spear and bits of armor. Her trim, muscled arms crossed over her chest and her brow furrowed, no doubt trying to figure out what nonsense Jane was embarrassing herself with.

“Princess!” Oh Lord, of all the people to have come along and catch her balling. Wiping her eyes as quickly as possible, Jane squared her shoulders and raised her chin properly. Kidagakash was _royalty_ after all, not Jane’s royalty per se, but Father always stressed during travel it was only proper to respect the local customs. “No, I am not- that is to say, yes, I am quite all right. Very kind of you to ask. Is there something I can-?” Oh bollocks, Atlantean, Jane. _Atlantean_. “ T… _taneb,_ _gesu se kik_?”

The Princess’ lips quirked as though Jane had told a joke. “Close. ‘S _e kik’_ would be you asking if you are helping me at this moment. _Gesu go mik_ is closer to offering future assistance.”

 _Convallaria muh-_ jay _-liss,_ Janey dear. 

“Agh, of _course_.” Jane reprimanded herself and, cursing her lack of bloody pockets, dived down to one of her available papers and scribbled a note about tense suffixes. “I apologize, Princess. Please, how may I be of service?”

She chuckled. A low, dignified sound. “You may start by unburdening both of us with the heavy ceremony, Jane Porter. My friends call me Kida.”

“Ah, well if we are to be dropping formality Prin- _Kida_ ,” she hastily corrected herself. “My friends call me Jane.”

“As you say.” That smirk was back, teasing Jane in a way that made her feel like she were a small mouse at the mercies of a smug cat. Kida walked to the water’s edge next to Jane, bent down and picked up Jane’s journal with the page open to an unfinished sketch. First name basis or not, Jane wrestled back her urge to rush up and snatch it from Kida’s curious hands. 

She flipped through the pages crammed with Jane’s writing with little patience, pausing at a quick doodle perhaps, before finally ending on the last page. Her finger brushed against the paper, testing something, and abruptly snapped the journal shut. 

“You are very talented,” Kida handed it back to her. Turning towards the city, with its toppled edifices and sleepy junks floating in the water, she said- almost to herself. “You see it too, do you not? How we live surrounded with constant reminders of what we once were, so that we can never escape from just how far we have fallen.”

She looked to Jane, her face grim. “It moved me to tears too, long ago. Now I fear I have little to spare.”

“I don’t think you- it is nothing of the sort.” Jane assured her. “We came down here expecting ruins. Instead we have…what must be the greatest single archaeological discovery in human history: a living, breathing, thriving culture!”

Kida shook her head. “It is true, our people live, but we are not thriving down here. Barely eking enough to last to the next day, while the dream of all that we were slowly wears away like water on a stone.”

Jane worried at her lower lip, hugging her journal to her chest and exhaled- “I- it was. When you came. I was looking at the city- your city- and it struck me at that moment how unbelievable it was that it was real and I was there to see it. And I only thought: if only my father were here to see this, and it got me to blubbering a little.”

She sniffled again, because _that_ was exactly what she needed, losing her composure in front of a stranger, first names or not. 

“I…am sorry,” Kida said. “I should not have-” She frowned, grasping at unfamiliar words. “May I ask why he could not participate in your journey?”

“He died.” Jane said, because it was easier to keep it simple. “Not even a year ago.”

Kida put her hand on her heart, grasping the crystal on her neck, and uttered what must have been a prayer- the words too low for Jane to fully make out. _Nish_ …may his spirit? Embrace the… _kerod_? Heart? Or the spirits embrace _his_ heart?

It was a lovely sentiment, and as much as Jane was touched it could not dull the bite out of her bitterness. “When he died, it was in disgrace. His colleagues saw to that.”

Kida raised an eyebrow. “Disgrace? What act would disgrace his honor?”

“He believed in you.” At her taken-aback look, Jane quickly corrected herself. “That is- in all of you. In Atlantis.” She gestured up at the world above the unseen ceiling of the cavern. “Back on the surface Atlantis is less than a myth. It’s a fairy tale, mere allegoric…cannon fodder for Plato’s ideal of some male-dominated utopia. Nothing a _real_ scholar would waste a career pursuing.”

All the petty snickers, snide commentary and peer-reviewed floggings of so-called legitimate scholars. She choked on that anger she’d been swallowing down for years- less she wind up crying after all. 

“Being here is your way to honor him,” Kida said.

“Something of that sort, I suppose.”

“And…your mother?”

“With father,” Jane replied with more aplomb. “The pox took her when I was a little girl.”

“I lost my mother as well,” Kida said sympathetically. “In the _Mebelmok_. I do not remember much of her- it happened when I was small, and it was so long ago. I cannot even recall what her voice sounded like.” 

“If it weren’t for photographs I’m not sure I would remember her face,” Jane said. “Father let me keep some of her perfume- and sometimes when I smell it I remember- wait. Mebelmok. That means…’Great Flood’.”

Kida blinked at the change of topic, but nodded. “Yes, that is correct.”

“But I thought- the original fall of Atlantis-” Jane shuffled through her journal- her theories about the alleged single-night calamity. “Yes, it is also called the Great Flood.”

“There is no ‘also,’” Kida explained. “The _Mebelmok_ brought an end to our empire and cast us below the waves.”

“But the way you spoke of it sounds as if…if _you_ had been there.”

“Of course. I was very young, but I still remember the panic, the people fleeing, my mother-” Kida’s fingers wrapped around her bare wrist. “It is a difficult thing to forget.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to insinuate, but if what you’re saying is true, then you must be…” Jane boggled at the math. “Eight and half _thousand_ years old?”

Kida shrugged. “Give or take a century.”

Jane swallowed around the foot in her mouth. White hair notwithstanding, She looked no older than Jane was- albeit far…fitter. “I. Well. You…look. You look lovely.”

“ _Pag en_ ,” Kida thanked her with a pleased smile.

“But…but…how is this even _possible_?”

“It is our _yoben_ ,” Kida lifted the crystal hanging around her neck, set right near her heart, and cupped it in her hand like one would a butterfly. “Every Atlantean is gifted one on their naming, granting us long life and healing our hurts.”

“Like back at the cavern,” Jane almost felt the twinge in her chest, remembering the strange sensation of Kida’s hand pressing the crystal to the wound. Her reticence forgotten in the purest curiosity, Jane thoughtlessly closed the distance between them and took the crystal from Kida’s hand, examining its shape and facets, mesmerized by its gentle glow. 

“But where do they all _come_ from?” Jane looked up from the crystal to ask her, and realized too late how Kida had stiffened. “Is something wrong?”

Kida moved slowly to reclaim her crystal from Jane’s unresistant fingers, remembering just how easily this hardened woman with a body like a dagger could have done so much more forcefully. 

“Among my people…” Kida explained slowly. “Taking hold of another’s yob is a very…familiar gesture.”

Jane already felt a self-conscious heat flush her cheeks. “Familiar?”

“How do I say…? It is like holding another’s… _nish_? No, their… _karod_.”

Karod? Wait which one was that? Oh. Oh no. “Their…heart?”

“Yes! Like holding another persons’ heart in your hand. It is a…powerful gesture of trust.”

Mortified, Jane let the crystal drop and took a step backwards, stammering. “Kida, I am so- I didn’t mean t-”

“You did not know,” Kida shook her head, smile surprisingly gentle for having her person so rudely trespassed. “Ignorance is no grave sin, so long as it is rectified.”

“Thank you.” Jane ducked her head, still completely appalled with herself. “You’ve already been far too generous with the likes of me.” 

“A thousand years ago, I might not have been.” The gentle, patient smile on Kida’s face passed into something grim and unrecognizable. Only then did the full weight of Kida’s admission of her age truly settled on Jane. 

“Kida-” Jane opened her mouth and faltered on a question she did not even know.

Like a fresh tide, the distant expression on Kida’s face was gone, and she looked up at Jane to declare: “I find myself hungry. Would you like to break your fast with me?”

“I think the camp can do without me for a while longer.”

* * *

The morning meal was served in a large communal hut on the water, open on all sides to keep the air free of smoke from the central cooking pot. 

Jane was personally not one for seafood, but with eighty or so centuries of practice, Atlanteans had learned how to prepare their constant diet of fish, moss, mushroom, mollusk, and seaweed with enough variety that Jane found a few dishes she enjoyed, though she was still averse to the grotesque giant prawn-like creatures Kida and Cookie had enjoyed eviscerating with gusto.

Many Atlanteans entered and left the hut without even touching any of the dishes. They were certainly obvious about their curiosity of the _weydagosen_ , the outsider, but ultimately they only had eyes for their Princess. 

Kida held a impromptu court of sorts while she sat on the floor cross-legged, ate, and spoke with her people. They brought their complaints of fish shortages in their districts, came to her to arbitrate disputes between neighbors, or ask for her opinion on matters of policy and distribution of scarce resources. 

Her father may still had been considered King, but Jane wondered if Kida were aware of the mantle of queenship about her as she patiently listened to her people’s concerns. Precious wood from a section of the city overgrown with thin, reedy trees were deemed a fair exchange for another’s fresh clay. A pair of squabbling men left mutually dour but respectful of their Princess’ verdict. Frustrated fishermen were sternly reminded that spawning grounds were to be left in peace to maintain their fragile population of food, and that royal guards would not be lenient to those that favored selfishness above the needs of the community.

Jane stayed quiet and jotted down as much as she could in her journal, taking careful note of the words and inflections of the conversations to mortar the gaps of her knowledge of Atlantean. She attempted to draw Kida as well, but her pencils faltered at the curve of her bare shoulder or the details of her muscled torso. Most of Jane’s artistic expertise was calligraphy and blocky ruins, and after several failed attempts to properly depict the inimitable shape of her lips, Jane returned to the much more manageable task of learning a lost language. 

The universal shriek of children at play made her start, and Jane watched a group of them scamper by and jump into the water like otters at play. When they dove below the water, the light of their crystals danced beneath the surface.

If Kida were truly that age or younger during the Great Flood, then those five year-olds could very well be older than Charlemagne. Jane was both in awe and a little envious- but quickly blanched at the thought of having her awkward teen years extended by a few centuries.

Not that her awkwardness had abated, since then.

Her eyes drew themselves to Kida’s crystal again. It was no more remarkable than any of the others her fellow Atlanteans wore, but like the icy fractals of a snowflake, its cut was unique, and the glow shining through its facets painted interested shadows across Kida’s chest as it swayed on its cord. 

Jane’s hand unconsciously felt the scar on her own chest. The wound had been deep and stinging when Kida had pressed crystal against it, briefly leaving a ghostly hand print at the spot. Now it was nothing more than a numb scar that looked years old. 

“Does that still pain you?” 

Kida’s voice made Jane start. A pair of ageless women across the room whispered something and giggled. 

“No,” Jane forced the hand from the scar to her lap and held it there. “Not at all. I’m quite alright, thank you.”

“Good. I was not sure it was going to work on you, when I had tried it. We rarely have need to heal any wounds but our own, and never an Outsider’s.”

Jane nodded, made wordless by a thought:

What did such a thing signify, to use your heart on another person?

“Are you busy tonight?” Kida asked her. Jane nearly choked on her seaweed dish. 

She swallowed and coughed. “I beg your pardon?”

Kida glanced around the hut at the other Atlanteans busy with food and conversation. “There is something I wish to show you later. Alone. Can you come?”

“Show me what?”

“Something I have managed to keep hidden for a long time.” Considering something, she looked Jane up and down. “Do you swim?”

“Well…yes, but I-” Jane gestured at her stained shirt and long skirt. “I didn’t exactly come prepared to.”

“Oh, that is alright,” Kida said agreeably. “It will only be the two of us, after all.”

For the remainder of the meal, Kida shared her giant prawn with a small girl that had sat down on her lap and chatted with the girls’ parents, all the while Jane felt she was perhaps sitting too close to the the cooking fire, her journal and bag untouched until they finally left.

**Author's Note:**

> Alternate Title: Linguistics and Gay British Subtext
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
